NEW! By Barry Rubin

“There have been many hundreds of books for and against Israel but no volume presenting the essential information about its domestic politics, its society, as well as its cultural life and its economy. This gap has now been filled.”—Walter Laqueur, author of A History of Zionism

"[An] essential resource for readers interested in learning the truth about the Zionist project in the 20th and 21st centuries."—Sol Stern, Commentary

“Offering in-depth perspectives with encyclopedic breadth on the makeup of the Jewish state, focusing only briefly on Israel's struggle for self-preservation. The section "History" provides a masterful summary of Israel's past from its socialist beginnings before independence to the modern struggles with the Iranian regime. . . .”—Publishers Weekly

“A well-written portrait of a vibrant nation at the center of turmoil in the region.”—Jay Freeman, Booklist

"It is indeed just a starting point, but Israel: An Introduction, if disseminated among our universities to the extent it deserves, will at least allow students of the Middle East and of Jewish history to start off on the right foot. A glimpse into the real Israel may do more for the future of U.S.-Israeli relations than any amount of rhetoric ever could."—Daniel Perez, Jewish Voice New York

Written by a leading historian of the Middle East, Israel is organized around six major themes: land and people, history, society, politics, economics, and culture. The only available volume to offer such a complete account, this book is written for general readers and students who may have little background knowledge of this nation or its rich culture.

About Me

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. See the GLORIA/MERIA site at www.gloria-center.org.

Recent Rubin Reports

Friday, January 6, 2012

This article was published in a very different form in the Jerusalem Post. I own the rights and ask you to read and link to this version.

By Barry Rubin

For the first time in forty years,
Israel is not the American president’s favorite Middle Eastern ally. Instead,
that role is played by Turkey’s government.

This would not be such a bad thing if we
were talking about the “old” Turkey, the secular republic. Unfortunately, President
Barack Obama’s favorite advisor among the regional leaders is Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Pretend all you want but Obama really dislikes—hates?—Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and truth be told Netanyahu has done nothing
to deserve that treatment.

The fundamental problem with Erdogan is
despite being embraced by the United States, he is an enemy of the United
States, the West more generally, and Israel. He is on the side of radical,
anti-American Islamists who want to wipe Israel off the map. So angry and
passionate is Erdogan’s loathing of Israel that the leader of the opposition
mockingly but pointedly asked if the prime minister wanted to go to war with
the Jewish state.

How obvious should this massive change be? Let me sum it up in one sentence: A few years ago Turkey was an ally of Israel. Now it is an ally of Hamas.

In contrast, the list of Erdogan’s
dearest friends includes Hamas, Hizballah, Iran, the repressive Sudanese
dictatorship, and Syria (formerly the regime there; now the Islamist portions
of the opposition). Erdogan would like to be good buddies with the Muslim
Brotherhood forces in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia, but are suspicious of
him, both because he is a Turk and not an Arab; due to memories of Ottoman rule in the past (an empire Erdogan often cites as a role model); and out of sheer competition for power and glory.

Erdogan’s record at home and
abroad shows what he and his regime are all about. Indeed, what is truly bizarre about Obama’s
judgment is that Erdogan has done little beneficial to the United States
and a number of things detrimental to it:

--Iraq war: Whatever you think of the Iraq
war, the refusal of the Turkish government to deliver on their promise to let
U.S. troops cross into northern Iraq in 2003 was unfriendly and many American
officials and members of Congress were outraged at the time.

--Israel policy: Erdogan has gone to an
extreme in attacking Israel and sabotaging any possibility of conciliation. His
government sponsored the Gaza flotilla knowing that a lot of the Turkish
participants were violent Islamists who wanted to stage a confrontation.

--Iran: Erdogan’s regime tried to
sabotage sanctions against Iran in 2010. He has repeatedly defended Iran’s
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and denied that Tehran is seeking nuclear
weapons. While there have been some bilateral disagreements—the Turkish
decision to allow in NATO installations to watch Iran and backing different
sides in Syria, the two countries remain quite close and Erdogan is currently
visiting Iran.

--Lebanon and Palestinians: In opposition
to U.S. policy, Erdogan backs radical, openly antisemitic Islamist terrorist
groups, Hamas and Hizballah. The leader of the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip
has just been received as a hero by Erdogan.

--Syria: While Turkey opposes the
continuation of the Asad regime in Syria, this is not out of a love of
democracy but rather due to support for a Sunni Islamist takeover there. When Obama
gave Erdogan the task of organizing a Syrian opposition leadership, the Turkish
regime packed that leadership with Islamists.

--Worldview: Erdogan’s foreign minister
wrote a book in Turkish explaining the regime’s strategy of aligning with the
Islamic world against the West. This is clearly what Erdogan has been doing.
The bonus, however, is that he has been able to pretend otherwise and thus act
without any real cost or pressure from the West. On the contrary, he can tell
Turkish voters that Obama loves him.

Then there’s Erdogan’s domestic policy which grows worse with each day: increasing repression; massive arrests without trial; trumped-up phony charges of
terrorism and treason; intimidation of the media; constitutional changes that
give him control over all institutions including the courts. The very real fear and despair within Turkey
is generally not reported in the West.

Now the former army chief of staff, retired General Ilker Basbug, has been humiliated and will be put on trial for allegedly trying to overthrow the regime. One thing that's never explained is that if the hundreds of officers arrested were working to stage a coup how come they never staged even the tiniest deed toward doing so? Meanwhile, journalists are on trial for alleged terrorism and other crimes.

Wait a minute! Maybe that's what the "Turkish model," which the Obama Administration wants to spread to the Arabic-speaking world, is: an elected government that makes itself into a dictatorship.

Talk to almost any Turk, at least to
those who aren’t regime supporters, and they’ll tell you that the only
explanation they can figure out is a conspiracy in which the United States
wants an Islamist regime in Turkey to prove its sympathy for Islam and possibly
affect such groups elsewhere.

One thing that the regime has done very
well—or, at least, benefitted from conditions—is regarding the economy. Despite
recent claims that Turkey’s economy is in trouble, the country seems to be
flourishing.

Soner Cagaptay, a frequent critic of the
regime, describes Turkey as in an unprecedented “sense of global confidence”
not seen for centuries; a “Eurasian China;” a country whose economy grew a
record 8.2 percent in the third quarter of 2011. Since 2002, he continues the
economy has nearly tripled in size. Its trade is shifting from Europe to
Islamic countries.

As one journalist put
it: "After suffering through eight coalition governments and four economic
crises, the Turkish people have welcomed ten years of a stable…government even
if it has meant entrenched single-party rule"

Cagaptay argues that to
continue this economic success the Turkish government must avoid “a belligerent
foreign policy.” But that’s a bit misleading. Turkey can have a radical,
pro-Islamist foreign policy that is objectively anti-Western at little cost. It
just has to avoid getting involved directly in wars, which it can easily do.

Now with the Turkish
army broken, Erdogan needs merely complete his control of the courts in oder to be able
to do whatever he pleases within the country.

And with Obama
following Erdogan’s advice and trying to help spread the “Turkish model”—electing
radical Islamist regimes that will be repressive at home and backing radicals
abroad—things look bright for Erdogan as he steadily consolidates control.

Barry Rubin is director
of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of
the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book,
Israel: An Introduction, will be published by Yale University Press in January.
Latest books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for
Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The
Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at
http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com